In the following review, Conlon compares the autobiographical elements of Reading in the Dark to those of Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes, finding Deane's novel representative of a more general Irish identity than McCourt's.

The word "mystery" derives from a Greek term for someone who kept his mouth shut: an initiate into the sacred rites and transcendent experiences of the ancient world. To outsiders, such individuals were distinguished by their refusal to speak of their secrets. So a mystery became what we don't understand, whether in the secular realm or the holy. Both are explored in Reading in the Dark a first novel about an Irish childhood by the eminent scholar and critic Seamus Deane.

As with many first novels, generous helpings of autobiographical material not only lend an emotional warmth and weight...